This week I came to a conclusion. I tend to prefer the Tex-Mex style of Mexican food over authentic Mexican. I also tend to prefer chain Mexican food over food from locally-owned Mexican restaurants. Is that wrong?
Even as a little kid, I had extensive experience dining out. I’d been to McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Burger King numerous times. There was also places called Burger Chef and Minute Man that I thought were as big a deal as McD’s but apparently they weren’t. I’d been to a pizza place called Shakey’s, which I loved because I could watch them make the dough. I went to a BBQ place called The Shack which was good. My grandmother took me to a cafeteria called Franke’s, which I thought was the most boring place in the world because I was the only one there under 70. I’d been to Steak & Ale a couple of times and thought it had to be the fanciest restaurant ever. I bet President Carter eats at Steak & Ale every night, I thought.
Spring 1978 was the first time I got to venture beyond American food. There was a restaurant called Casa Bonita in Little Rock, in a shopping center at Asher and University. You went through this long line to order. There were four different Mexican plates, for $4.95 each. But I didn’t care about those! I wanted the Deluxe Dinner. It consisted of a cheese enchilada topped with chili con carne, a beef burrito topped with nacho cheese sauce, a tamale, a taco, a guacamole salad, and rice and beans. Also, the Deluxe Dinner had free refills, whereas the other dinners didn’t (the Nuh-Uh Girl would have loved the Deluxe Dinner). There was some debate about whether I should be allowed to order the Deluxe Dinner, because 1) I was still a little kid, and there was reason to doubt I could eat it all; 2) I’d never eaten Mexican before and might not even like it; and 3) at $5.95, the cost was nearly pushing into Steak & Ale territory. After several minutes, I won the argument (only children nearly always do) by pointing out that I could eat an entire Big Mac by myself already.
The $5.95 proved to be money well spent when I not only finished the Deluxe Dinner, but put the flag up and ordered a refill! Casa Bonita had the best idea ever for calling a server over to your table. They had flags at each table. When you needed something, you put your flag up and someone would come right over. If your flag wasn’t up, they didn’t bother you. It was brilliant. I was too young to really notice it in 1978, but a lot of people did date night there. The flag system worked well because people wouldn’t interrupt you while you were talking to your date. I wonder how many guys in 1978 got a peek at what’s under the tube top after a successful date at Casa Bonita?
It wasn’t just the food I loved at Casa Bonita, but the atmosphere as well. They had a strolling Mexican guitarist who would come around to your table and sing for you. They had someone in an animal costume – at first I thought it was a bear, but now I’m pretty sure it was a monkey – who would come by and entertain the kids. They’d also give the kids tokens for their arcade. In 1978 the arcade would have housed a bunch of pinball machines, Pong, Breakout, and maybe Space Invaders. In other words, by modern standards it would have sucked, but back then I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Of course, I wanted to play well past the couple of tokens that the restaurant gave me, and got additional quarters for the machines. Those quarters helped offset the restaurant’s loss on my Deluxe Dinner refill.
Casa Bonita was one of the few restaurants where I’d choose a non-carbonated beverage over a Coke or a Mountain Dew. The Deluxe Dinner came with choice of drink, and I’d always go for the restaurant’s homemade fruit punch.
The one part of the dinner I wasn’t totally crazy about was dessert. They had sopapillas. You’d bite a corner off these puffy pastries, pour honey in, and then eat them. I must admit I never saw the point. You got honey all over you and they weren’t that great. I ended up ordering a refill of my Deluxe Dinner and had that while everyone else ate their sopapillas.
Anyway, Casa Bonita became the standard against which I judged all other Mexican restaurants. To this day I eat at other places and think to myself, “Is this as good as Casa Bonita?” The answer is always the same. NO!
Yet, as I got older – and particularly after I lived in San Diego for six months – I began to realize something. The food at Casa Bonita was not authentic Mexican fare. It was Tex-Mex. Two things were giveaways. For one, the cheese enchilada was topped with chili con carne, rather than red Ranchero sauce. Second was that the enchilada was there at all. The closer you get to the border, the less you see enchiladas as a staple on the menu.
In 1980 I discovered a second Mexican restaurant called Taco Kid. It was on Cantrell Road in Little Rock, right at the top of the hill from where I lived, much more convenient to get to than Casa Bonita. They had what must have been the lamest cheese dip ever – cups of dip made from plain cheddar, with maybe a hint of nacho seasoning stirred in, often left to cook a minute too long to give it a slightly burnt flavor. But back then I thought it was the best cheese dip ever!
So, nowadays I live in Downtown Memphis, and work in Horn Lake, Mississippi, right near the border with Southaven. Horn Lake is too far away to come back Downtown during my lunch breaks. So, I’ve made it a point to try every Mexican restaurant within a 5 mile radius of where I work. Do any of them measure up to Casa Bonita? NO! Yet, I realize I feel that way because my first Mexican food wasn’t “proper” Mexican.
Which one of the Horn Lake/Southaven Mexican restaurants do I like the best? Thomas from the Eat Local Memphis blog is going to shudder when he reads this. On the Border. A chain restaurant. Yeah, I know, but it reminds me of what I had as a kid. For one thing, they have a choice of two different queso dips – yellow or white. Most “authentic” Mexican places in the area only have the white variety. However, the yellow cheese dip reminds me of what I had at Taco Kid in the early ’80s, so that’s what I order.
My favorite main course at On the Border? Ranchiladas. It’s skirt steak topped with Ranchero sauce, with two cheese enchiladas topped with chili con carne, with rice and your choice of black or refried beans. Totally a Tex-Mex dish. The cheese enchiladas are reminiscent of the ones I had as a little kid. For my choice of beans, I know black beans are healthier, but I always get refried because that’s what came on the Deluxe Dinner at Casa Bonita.
My second-favorite Mexican restaurant ever? Mexico Chiquito, also Little Rock-based and also very Tex-Mex oriented. I would kill to have a Mexico Chiquito open in Memphis.
Thank goodness Little Rock didn’t get a Taco Bell until 1985. Can you imagine if I’d grown up thinking that was the standard for good Mexican food?